Chapter 7

7

Abraham Lincoln Panim grew up like any other child would, progressing from being a baby to being a toddler and then, being of school age.

Mrs. Stottle did everything a nanny could do to make her new charge comfortable and familiar to her, taking up her new job as if she were born to do it.

She doted on little Abraham Lincoln Panim as a grandmother would, which the little boy loved,

Mrs. Stottle would arrive promptly at 7 a.m. each weekday—never a minute early or late—and she fed him, played with him all day, took care of his dressing, his feeding, and whatever else was needed.

And from day one, she would tell Abraham Lincoln Panim over and over, as if the little boy could understand her every word:

“Do unto others as you would have the do unto you … treat other people the way you would like to be treated yourself.”

She would try to go outside with her little charge, but she learned that he didn’t take too kindly to being taken outside during the day. Mrs. Panim reiterated that she did not have to do this, because she would take him outside when she got home, but Mrs. Stottle tried, and tried again, and tried many times to get her young charge out into the daylight, but each time, it did not work.

Whether it was people howling at the child when they took a gaze at him, or the child acting up like a tornado when he got outside, the daylight and Abraham Lincoln Panim did not mesh well.

When Mrs., Panim arrived home at about 4 or 5 p.m. each day, Mrs. Stottle would have a laundry list of things to tell Mrs. Panim about her son.

“Your son did so well today,” said Mrs. Stottle on one particular day. “He ate up all his food, he didn’t give me the least bit of problems when I had to take care of his diaper, and we played all day. My feet hurt, but that is good—it means we had a full day!”

“Great!” replied Mrs. Panim, worn out from her busy day at school but happy that her son was doing so well with his nanny, who she seemed to know, but simply could not place days and months after she was hired.

“And,” Mrs. Stottle said that particular day, “you know, a lot of the hair on his little body is falling off, falling off in bunches when I bathe him.”

As little Abraham Lincoln Panim was getting older, moving from a baby to a toddler, much of the hair on his body was falling off, at least from the neck down.

And later, as he approached school age, the hair on his face also was falling off, leaving his face almost hairless—except for a clump of thick hair on his upper chest, hair that still protruded from his lip and nose area, and, of course, the thick swatch of dark hair he had on the top of his head that kind of made a point at his brow and went down both sides of his face, below his ears, making him look like he had dark sideburns on each side of his head.

Although a good portion of the excessive hair was falling off, Abraham Lincoln Panim still kind of resembled at rat, but a not-so hairy one.

“Wow!” said Mrs. Panim. “What type of shampoo are you using on him?”

“Just the usual stuff,” Mrs. Stottle said. “I don’t think it is anything I wouldn’t use on myself, if I had the need to bathe myself like I do your son.”

Eventually, when he was about four or five years old, Abraham Lincoln Panim lost almost all his excess hair—except that burr of hair on his upper chest, the thick hair that he had on his head that stretched down to make sideburns that went past each ear, and the hair protruding from his lip and nose area. but his face continued to resemble that of a rat, with a sharp nose, little beady eyes, and the excess hair had not totally fallen off of his face.

And he still could not stand the smell of cheese, often going into convulsions when he would smell any type of cheese wherever he was.